Basic Numeracy: Cars With ‘5’ in the Model Name
This week we’re going to be bringing you a series of gallery posts which highlight very specific model names of vehicles. They won’t all be in current production, and we are certain there will be outrageous omissions. Still, consider these rigs a good down payment on an interesting topic: one which might make for a good road trip game or pub trivia question.
Feel free to add your own entrants on social media, of course, and we hope you’ve enjoyed this small series of posts. Wrapping up the week is the number ‘5’. If you’re starting to feel like The Count from Sesame Street, we do apologize. We’ll return to regularly scheduled programming on Monday.
[Images: Cadillac, Mazda, BMW]
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Remember how we promised (warned?) there would likely be a BMW in each of these posts? That doesn’t change for today, with the BMW 5 Series making a rightful appearance on this list. Long the choice of anyone looking for a well-sized and handsome sedan which could bring the firepower when optioned correctly, the 5er has been pressed into duty with tasks so varied as shuttling European salespeople to calls, wagon versions being stuffed full of well-heeled families and their pets, and being flung around racetracks in anger.
In fact, the mighty M5 has always been the stuff of legends, especially when equipped with a manual transmission as was available back in the day. Cylinder count in the M5 has changed over the years - and this author thinks the E39 was the zenith both in terms of styling and powertrain - but the sheer road presence of an M5 has rarely wavered.
Competing with the M5 these days is the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, a hugely powerful Detroit sedan with the heart of a Corvette. That a group of gearheads toiling within the bowels of General Motors managed to get a 668 horsepower Cadillac, complete with an available manual transmission, past the company’s dot accountants is nothing short of remarkable.
Future collectors (and present-day ones, if we’re being honest) will be sure to seek out examples equipped with the spendy-but-worth-it Le Monstre package, an intentionally short-lived homage to a Cadillac which once dominated competition at Le Mans.
Far on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of speed compared to those two cars is the Mazda CX-5. Why include a mass-market crossover in the same article as a pair of fire breathing performance sedans? Because it was the CX-5 which arguably brought a bit of life to its segment.
Even early examples were infused with the sort of zoom-zoom which gives Mazda vehicles an entertaining bent beyond most of its competitors. It’s always been a good-looking car, too, with the newly sharpened 2026 model maintaining that tradition.
